By Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Any sports fan will tell you that the old adage is true: the best defense is a good offense. Teams that cough up the lead and falter in the end don’t play to win—they play to not lose. Losing teams wrongly assume that they’ve already built enough of a lead and made enough progress that they can go into a shell and wait out the clock. Winning teams continue the strategy that earned them the lead in the first place, keeping up the attack and staying on the offensive. Last Thursday, I presented a fiscal year 2015 budget to the Board of Aldermen that plays to win—and to win it for our community.

This budget continues the proven strategy that we have pursued together and has successfully navigated our city through challenging economic times to a place where a bright future is at our fingertips. We do not come up with a new game plan every year, chasing after the promise of quick fixes or easy solutions. Instead, the budget stays level-headed and clear-eyed, grounded in our core principles and our community’s orienting values. That’s the game plan that has yielded some of the greatest successes in our city’s history over the past decade, awards for our fiscal management, significant drops in crime, better schools, safer streets, thriving business districts, conservative budget practices lauded by financial agencies and the highest bond ratings in our city’s history.

We pick our spots. We are not always shooting for the big play. Instead, we set a foundation for success, plan carefully and grind it out, measuring our progress along the way and making adjustments when necessary. The current fiscal landscape demands prudence. Since 2000, we’ve lost $42 million in state aid when adjusted for inflation. That figure is more than the total budget for both the Police and Fire Departments combined, and shifts the burden of paying for the services taxpayers need onto our local revenue stream, mainly through property taxes—one reason why I proposed and the Board of Aldermen approved increasing our residential exemption.

So we have to be smart about when and where we invest, basing our decisions on data analysis and where we will realize even greater returns on our investments, while continuing to invest in the reforms and services we know that residents and businesses need. We have to run leaner and more effective, and that is just what we have done in the past 10 years, spending per capita 60 percent less than Cambridge and 50 percent less than Boston while offering better services and quality of life.

This budget continues that lean and effective approach, taking care of the fixed costs that make up more than 80 percent of the budget, such as contractual obligations and our pension system. With the just 20 percent left, we strategically make the critical investments to improve services, bolster education, and protect public safety and quality of life. We spend to our obligations—and to our values.

Last year we made the largest one-year increase in education funding in our city’s history. This year we will match that, with additional funding for Somerville Public Schools helping to launch an innovative public-private early childhood network that will ensure from diapers to day one of kindergarten, children and their families will get the support they need, deserve and that will help them be better learners. More reading support, expanded special needs teaching staff and a new English Language Learner liaison will also make sure that Somerville Schools address every need of every child, while continuing the initial investments made last year that are providing more students than ever before with hands-on science and technology education, opportunities to learn a foreign language, music classes and intramural sports—all programs proven to improve academic success.

The advances at the city’s Inspectional Services Division that have led to faster turnaround and better service is one of the great highlights of the past year. This budget will continue to address demand for targeted services at ISD with additional food safety and plumbing and gas inspectors, a zoning review planner, and a paralegal, all positions that will make the office that protects our quality of life more efficient and accessible, responding promptly and decisively to issues. And it will ensure that the Code Enforcement Officer hired this past year can continue to focus on dumpster inspections and trash and rodent complaints as part of our war on rodents.

We’re making our city safer with new civilian positions in public safety—a fire protection engineer and senior police IT specialist—that will allow the redeployment of a trained firefighter and police officer off those duties and back to where they are needed most: in our community. The budget also includes a new K9 unit to replace the last now-retired dog.

Our quality of life will improve with the addition of a Human Services Division to our Health Department that will get residents referrals to the services they need; an additional transportation planner to see the community’s vision for the Community Path, Green Line and other projects through to completion; additional funding for our successful Somerville by Design community planning program; and more investment in recreation, which keeps our kids healthy and prevents problems from arising later in our children’s lives, and in the arts that activate our neighborhoods and squares and create between $3 and $5 in economic impacts for every dollar spent.

In the last year, we’ve earned accolades for our budget practices and the highest bond ratings in our city’s history from agencies that laud our “conservative budgetary practices.” We are sticking to that winning strategy. These are strategic investments that will reap even greater returns. We are staying cost-conscious and unlocking economic opportunities that will broaden our tax base and realize real, sustainable property tax relief. We have got the lead, and we are going to hold on to it by staying on the path that got us here—investing in our people, our quality of life and our collective vision for the future.